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Thursday, June 12, 2014

Zillow Now Offering "Coming Soon" Listings

Zillow is starting a new "feature" that allows agents to post what we in the industry call pocket listings: Properties that are supposedly for sale before they are listed in the MLS.

Pocket listings are prevalent in some markets, and no doubt a lot of buyers see agents negotiating pocket listings on popular real estate TV shows on Bravo or HGTV.

Unfortunately for consumers, pocket listings are full of potential legal and accuracy issues that will add more headaches than necessary to the home buying process.

The MLS I belong to, Mid Florida MLS, the 2nd largest in the country, requires that a property must be listed in the MLS within 48 hours of receipt of a signed listing agreement by the seller. Zillow's "Coming Soon" will not be much of a benefit.

Zillow's "Coming Soon" feature opens up a lot of opportunity for agents to abuse it. In the absence of a signed listing agreement, agents could post a property for sale without a signed listing agreement and leave it there indefinitely, hoping to attract new buyer customers.

#AccuracyMatters: When you combine Zillow's scraped tax database pre-foreclosure listings that are not for sale, stale listings that may have sold months or even years ago, and now "Coming Soon" listings that may have no signed seller agreement, Zillow becomes less and less reliable for accurate property listings for sale.